MARSHALL: Good evening Mike! After all the fun “Star Wars” news today – you know, the OTHER Disney super- franchise – all this seems like a bit of an afterthought, eh? Well, anyway, one week after one of the stronger “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” episodes we’re dropped back into the fog of an intelligence war, as Melinda May confronts Agent Maria Hill – currently an employee of Tony Stark, and fresh from a session of congressional inquiry (“What is a Man-Thing?) – and quizzes her about Fury, Tahiti and Alexander Pierce. Hill insists that Fury is dead, but May doesn’t buy it.

Back in the bunker, Coulson and gang are perplexed by May’s abandonment, Ward and Skye’s absconding with the Bus, and the absence of one Agent Koenig. Fitz eventually finds a message, presumably left by Skye, fingering Ward for a Hydra agent. Cue Simmons’s scream upon discovering the sad corpse of Patton Oswalt.

MIKE: Say what you will about J.J. Abrams, you have to admit that this cast is shaping up to be pretty cool. Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Max Von Sydow! I’m impressed … oh, yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D.

“WARD IS HYDRA” reads the message Skye left behind for Coulson and the crew. An examination of poor Patton Oswalt’s body confirms this, as his time of death crosses off May as a potential killer. After a freakout from Fitz, the crew quickly puts two and two and two and two together to figure out what’s gone down. They deduce that Skye has put herself in a position to be extremely value to the villainous Ward and his HYDRA masters. Something about the drive she encrypted, or whatever. INTRIGUE.

Meanwhile, a jittery Ward is eager for Skye to get down to business and decrypt the drive in question. At a diner in L.A. She’s stalling, practically throwing up smoke signals for her S.H.I.E.L.D cronies to track her down. Meanwhile, she has a moment of deja vu: She had actually sat in that booth before, with Mike Peterson, back when he was a good guy, before he became Deathlok.

In Canada, Coulson and his crew, including an increasingly vocal and active Agent Triplett, are getting ready for a fight. There are some armed and dangerous men breaking into the compound. They’re not S.H.I.E.L.D. They’re not HYDRA. No, they’re special forces, led by the pesky Col. Glenn Talbot. How exactly did he find out about the secret location? Well, Maria Hill marches in and answers that question for everyone.

MARSHALL: While Coulson ponders Maria’s betrayal, Melinda May is digging around for his corpse…literally. In some picturesque graveyard, May emerges from the grave of “Phil Coulson,” digging around for info on the Tahiti project.

Maria’s betrayal is just that, but it isn’t malicious per se. She has little respect for the military, and by dangling Fury’s secret base in front of their faces like catnip, she figures she can save Coulson and his team by bringing them into “the system.” But once Coulson reveals the extent of Ward’s betrayal, Maria decides she is better off sticking with her former S.H.I.E.L.D. comrades and both she and Phil handily take out Talbot and his special forces goons.

In the diner, Skye has had enough of Ward’s charade and starts interrogating him about his subterfuge before revealing, finally, that rather than decrypting the file she was notifying the world about Ward. Pity the poor beat cops who think they can arrest Agent Ward. He kills them all as Skye drives off in a squad car. She’s almost free until Michael “Deathlok” Petersen lands on the hood.

MIKE: Now a prisoner of Deathlok and Ward, Skye confronts the dreamy traitor. She accuses Ward of being a Nazi — after all, HYDRA’s founder, the Red Skull, was a Nazi — which is pretty hardcore for this kind of show. In fact, I think Skye used the word “Nazi” more often in her verbal assault on Ward than it was uttered in all of “Captain America: The First Avenger,” and that movie was set during World War II!

As the scene unfolds, Ward pleads his case to Skye, saying his feelings for her have always been firm and true, even if his professional ethics have anything but. She’s not buying it, but it looks like — no, feels like — he’s telling the truth. It’s probably the most genuine scene we’ve seen these characters share. Pity it came along so late in the season.

Deathlok is ordered to break up the party and initiate “Plan B,” which involves stopping Ward’s heart and just about killing him in order to coerce Skye into giving them the key to breaking the drive’s encryption. Even though she’s pretty much done with Ward at this point, Skye doesn’t want to see him die and so she spills it: It can only be broken at 35,000 feet. Time to take off.

Ward, rattled and dazed by Deathlok’s gambit, runs into a little resistance, though, as he tries to take off. Agents Hill and Triplett are on the runway with their own plane, but after a sharp exchange between Hill and Ward, the bad guys get their way since the good guys don’t want to risk Skye. Too bad for the bad guys, though, that Coulson has slipped aboard the Bus.

MARSHALL: He slipped onto the bus, rescued Skye, but failed to notice Deathlok. The two of them make a break for the hanger and for Lola. With headlight machine-guns blaring, Coulson backs Lola out of the Bus and into a free-fall, with afterburners barely firing until they sorta-kinda do and Coulson and Skye just barely avoid crashing into a Marriott. Back on board, Ward warns Deathlok about the “heart attack” trick, but Deathlok insists he was only following orders. Ward may not be able to trust Garrett either.

And so the gang is left to ponder their future poolside at a cheap motel, and Skye assures Coulson that she built some sort of failsafe into the hard drive.

The Marvel Cinematic/Television Universe wouldn’t be what it is without reliable failsafes.

Oh! Cool! A “Godzilla” trailer….

MIKE: Yes, I’m psyched for “Godzilla.” So psyched that it’ll probably fail to live up to my unrealistic fanboy expectations. Oh well.

Anyway, Coulson slips back into his room and finds May waiting for him. She’s offering him a look at the super duper secret video that will reveal who was behind the TAHITI program. Well …

… the video is of Coulson himself, back before Loki killed him, offering his resignation to Nick Fury unless the TAHITI program is terminated. According to Coulson’s testimony, Fury wanted the program up and running to fix up any Avenger that might have been mortally wounded. However, the tests led to unstable results, including mental deterioration and even psychosis, in the subjects. It was so bad that Coulson wanted Fury to pull the plug. Yikes.

Coulson’s response to the video, though? A bewildered “huh.”

There are only two episodes left in the season. How do you think it’s going to wrap up? Do you think they’ll tie the show into “Guardians of the Galaxy” somehow?